Embracing Change
I changed my title from “Always to Have Background Sound” to “Prefer to Have Background Sound.” It’s not just a word change or a title change; it also required changing file names, PDF file names, audio file names, and URLs.
As search engines index URLs or some people may share my articles, changing the URL becomes an extended problem and it couldn’t be controlled by you.
I like to keep the correct naming. My file name contains “always-sound” now, but it changes to “background-sound.” If I had used “background-sound” initially, it wouldn’t need to change as I changed “Always” to “Prefer.”
This kind of thing happens in my life again and again. For big mistakes, people will change. It is so painful. And people reflect and improve. But regarding this small mistake, people usually won’t change.
I was unaware of this problem. This problem is easy to fix. Just rename some files. And then I write a script to rename. However, I should improve the naming part. I should choose the topic of my post and choose a name that’s unlikely to change forever. And it should be consistent with my post.
To pick the words or naming that’s unlikely to change. For code, it is the same; pick a good variable or function name that is unlikely to change. In programming, there are a lot of cases that need you to summarize some actions or behaviors with one or two words. We need to carefully pick words for them. So we can avoid refactoring later.
To avoid the trouble that comes later, we need to think and take action in advance. The effort that we put into forming this habit can lead to fewer and fewer troubles in the long run. We do everything correctly at the first shot.
So that’s why we pass good products or services, the truth, to the next generations. They won’t be affected by wrong knowledge and will directly have a good experience. Think about changing one’s name; it will lead to many problems.
One of my high school classmates changed her name. Though I know her new name, every time I think about her, the original name just appears in my mind.
People are hard to change minds. It is harder to fix a mistake than to learn a whole new thing. Just like it is harder to lose weight than to gain weight.
So we change a lot to ensure we don’t need to change later. Saying this seems contradictory. Our purpose is to want to be unchanged. How can we be happy to change a lot? The thing is that we like to continuously change and improve forever.